When the elimination game ended, the brash confidence McGrady exuded before the series was absent. “Maybe I could have made an extra play,” he said. “Maybe I could have gathered those loose rebounds we didn’t get coming down the stretch of the game. Maybe I could have done more. It didn’t happen.”

When a follow-up question was posed, McGrady paused, bowed his head and wiped away a couple of tears, looking back up before saying, “I can’t.”

Two games after dishing out a career-high 16 assists in the Rockets’ Game 5 win, McGrady finished the series’ swan song with a terrific 29 points and 13 assists. But the years of hearing about the failures had obviously worn on the man.

“I said, ‘This team is gonna go as far as I can take ’em.’ And I tried my best. I tried, man.”

Not this ANYMORE! As a McGrady fan I hate to see this in the upcoming season! With all the additions to the Rockets roster, it's time to go deep into the playoffs. Scola, Francis, Brooks, James and Adelman (as a coach) should make this team deep.

So I made this thread to follow the Rockets season progress. I'll post here the W and L from time to time and everyone can comment on the season and how it's gone.

i think this our year. the whole team looks good out there. and rafer is looking better than ever. this could be because the pressure of mike james or francis starting over him, so he's showing the coach what he can do.

Okay, finally time to write here something. The Rockets started this season strong, going 6-1 and lead the Western conference. Now this seem to go wrong, just for a while. The Rockets are now 6-5 and McGrady in injured for about a week. When T-Mac is out it now looks like that Yao can't carry the team by himself. Didn't the same thing happen last season when Tracy was out. Yao is averaging 17 ppg in three loses without T-Mac and 13 ppg in last two games. Now should that tell you whos team this is (when it seems to be a topic every year in this forum!) But no worries. I expect McGrady to return at the end of next week and the Rockets can stack some in W column. As I've watched some Rockets games it has looked better than last season. They move the ball well and create much more open shots and it should just get better when they learn the new system more. The experiense, or lack of it, shows now with too many turnovers. I think Yao and T-Mac don't face so many douple teams as they used to in the past, cause of the fast pace and good movement. So I'll expect good season and hope Yao can carry this team one more week.